What can you do in Las Vegas if you don’t gamble? There are endless activities and attractions in Las Vegas every day that do not involve gambling. Steve and I visited Las Vegas several times over our many years. We enjoy gambling a bit, but that is always just the sideshow for us.
Hotel Wandering
There are so many hotels and casinos on the Strip, off the Strip, downtown at Fremont Street, and in the suburbs that we will never be able to visit them all. It is possible to spend entire days wandering from glitzy hotel to hotel. Here are a few we recently visited.
The Palazzo and Venetian
Palazzo Hotel Lobby
These days, my personal favorite hotel is the Palazzo, connected to The Venetian by the Grand Canal Shoppes. The two hotels both have the same rooms, but the Palazzo is just a bit newer. I love these large all-suite rooms!
Gondola rides outside Venetian Hotel
Gondola rides inside Venetian. See the blue sky painted ceiling?
You can spend entire days wandering between these two hotels, shopping, enjoying the many restaurants, taking in the magnificent décor. The ceiling throughout the shops is painted with clouds and blue sky. It is a little disconcerting to leave the bright blue skies and walk outside after dark.
Cosmopolitan Hotel
This is a new hotel to us and it has several fun secret places and all kinds of interesting art and memorabilia throughout its wide open spaces.
Secret Pizza
This small pizza place is hidden down a corridor in the hotel and doesn’t even have a name. You can find it by following your nose, or of course, asking around. Good pizza, though, and worth the hunt! This is take-out or delivery only, no dine-in service.
Secret cocktail
Sorry, I already ate the Szechuan flower bud!
With its ginormous crystal chandelier, the Chandelier Bar is the focal point of The Cosmopolitan Hotel and has its own secret. An off-the-menu cocktail, the Verbena, is served here.
The Verbena is a margarita-ish drink but is presented with a Szechuan flower bud floating on the top. I ate the flower bud before tasting the cocktail. The flower bud makes your mouth tingle and feel numb simultaneously, in a good way, and enhances the taste of the drink.
More secrets
A few more secret spots at The Cosmopolitan is the secret dining room at Jaleo restaurant and a secret bar and lounge in Stitched, a very upscale men’s clothing store.
Fremont Street
This is a light show!
Fremont Street is a five-block entertainment destination in historic downtown Las Vegas and is lined with casinos and hotels. The world’s biggest video screen, suspended above the pedestrian mall, continuously displays a free light show. You won’t want to miss this experience. It is mesmerizing.
Some fun adventures right in Las Vegas
Springs Preserve
The Springs Preserve is a 180-acre preserve in Las Vegas with botanical gardens, hiking trails, and The Nevada State Museum. We did not visit the Museum, café, and a few other features as they are not fully reopened to the public.
The Preserve’s 20-minute historical train ride through the property.
Visit the Animal Habitat to view live desert animals in their habitats.
Botanical Gardens
This is my favorite part of the Preserve. Beautifully landscaped walkways meander along forever, it seems, with beautiful plants, flowers, and whimsical sculptures all along the way. Park benches are randomly placed about where you can sit and enjoy the scenery.
Neon Museum
This Museum is an outdoor historical walking tour of Las Vegas’ glamorous neon casino and hotel signs dating from the 1930s to the present. The tour is self-guided, but Museum representatives are available in several areas to provide information and history about the signs you see.
Look at all of those neon signs!
In 1966 the Neon Museum is a non-profit organization. In addition to the outdoor exhibition, the Museum includes a great gift shop and visitors’ center. A separate area across the street is a perfect venue for special events such as weddings or photoshoots. We were there during the day, but the lights are lit up after dark. Surely an amazing sight.
Pinball Hall of Fame
Oh, what laugh out loud plain good fun is here, and what a great walk down memory lane. The Pinball Hall of Fame relocated to this new building on Las Vegas Boulevard a few weeks ago and is chock full of pinball machines from the 50s to the 90s and even includes some arcade games.
Walking down the aisles looking at each machine, Steve and I both reminisced about the great times playing some of these machines. I love playing pinball games. This placed is managed by the nicest people too.
Look at the history here! Just 25 cents a game.
We each played a few machines, and many of the older pinball machines require only one quarter for a game. I do not remember ever playing a pinball machine with only one flipper on each side, new to me. This is indeed a fun way to spend an afternoon – anywhere, and we will return here for more fun next time.
Get out of town
Seven Magic Mountains
The Seven Magic Mountains art installation is a temporary exhibit in place since 2016 and is approximately a 30-minute drive from the Las Vegas Strip. It is a creation of the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.
This trendy tourist destination is easily visible from Interstate 15 because each boulder is painted in bright neon colors. The seven stacks of boulders are each 30 to 35 feet high, and each boulder weighs 10 to 25 tons. Furthermore, this exhibit has been photographed millions of times.
Redrock Canyon
Red Rock Canyon, in the Mojave Desert, is 17 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip. Red Rock and offers a 13-mile scenic drive, hiking trails, mountain biking, picnic areas, and an excellent look at towering red sandstone peaks. Native American petroglyphs are also on display on the rocks here.
Red Rock Canyon has over two million visitors each year. Timed entry reservations are necessary and can be made at https://www.recreation.gov/timed-entry/10075177 or by phone at 877.444.6777.
RV camping is available here, and Red Rock is now added it to our list of places to visit on one of our RV trips out west.
Valley of Fire State Park
The Valley of Fire State Park is less than an hour’s drive north of the Las Vegas strip. This 40,000-acre state park has tent camping, RV camping, and many hiking trails through the limestone rocks.
An excellent Visitor Center explains the history and geology of the park. The Visitor Center exhibits were closed during our recent visit. We are fortunate we visited on past trips to Las Vegas and had a chance to enjoy the exhibits on display.
If the park’s history interests you, you can read about here: History of the Valley of Fire State Park.
Death Valley National Park
This park is really too far from Las Vegas, but we made it a day trip. Although the drive is beautiful, it is a two-hour drive from Las Vegas to Death Valley. We only had time to drive through a tiny portion of the park. This park is now also on our RV trip list.
Death Valley National Park is enormous, over 3 million acres! Part of the park is in Nevada, and a portion is in California. It is known for its dangerously high temperatures and very low annual rainfall. Also, Death Valley boasts the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below sea level.
The Sailing Stones of Death Valley
Steve wanted to see these sailing stones, but they out of our reach on our day trip. These stones, varying from a few ounces to hundreds of pounds, move across the flat desert, apparently propelled all by themselves. We will make it a point to see this phenomenon on an RV trip to Death Valley.
Other Las Vegas Experiences
Grand Canyon
One of our favorite, once-in-a-lifetime experiences from a few years ago was a narrated helicopter tour from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. The helicopter landed during the tour for a picnic lunch at the canyon edge. This is a tour we both highly recommend.
Hoover Dam
Construction was ongoing during our visit.
We did not take an organized tour to Hoover Dam but visited on our own. Hoover Dam is less than an hour’s drive from the Strip, making it a leisurely afternoon or morning trip and well worth the time to see it.
These are a few of our fun day trip experiences in Las Vegas that are completely disconnected from casinos and the famous Strip. Many other adventures are waiting for us and you in Las Vegas. Honestly, there is something for everyone.
Back to the RV
We traveled to New Orleans in the last few months and also traveled to Las Vegas twice. These trips always are great fun, but we are now very eager to get back in the motorhome and meander around.
Our travel choices are slowly returning. We can now fly to travel destinations, stay in nice hotels, and dine at great restaurants. We also are very much looking forward to the return of international cruising; however, Steve and I enjoy our RV travel with Lilly and Tank the most.
Bottom line — I seriously, ALWAYS want to go!
Cooper and Jason would LOVE the pinball! I wish mom and I would have gone to Fremont Street when we were there…..just another reason to go back!
You could spend hours there too!
What fun! I love wandering through all the Las Vegas hotels. So many sights! But I’ve never done any of the road trips to visit all the other places outside the city.
It was a couple of fun trips. There is much more to see and do that we haven’t gotten to yet too!
Your trips always sound like so much fun!
Vegas is on my bucket list. I hope to get there soon. And I will definitely check out the Pinball Hall of Fame! I was a pinball wizard in my teens.
We do try to have a good time. The Pinball Hall of Fame is in a nice big new building with room for so many machines. A pinball wizard! You will love this place.